Hypocrisy of the 'Gay Wedding Cake' Case Ruling

ren wrote: My local bakery refused to sell me a blowjob even though I specifically requested one. I am furious they are discriminating against my sexuality and am looking forward to suing them.

You really could do with learning how to ask things nicely , go back to the baker and ask nicely :laugh:

ren wrote: My local bakery refused to sell me a blowjob even though I specifically requested one. I am furious they are discriminating against my sexuality and am looking forward to suing them.

I think you might be confused about what services a bakery provides...or I just go to really boring bakeries. :laugh:

Senan there's one line from your last post that caught my attention.

Senan wrote: It isn't slavery when the laborer benefits financially and is doing it by choice.

In this case they aren't doing it by choice though, they are being legally mandated to do it.

I can't stress this part enough so I'm going to bold it. I think that the bakery should have done it willingly because it would be morally right to do so and be a better business practice. The part that I disagree with is the idea of being forced to do it by the government. Instead, I think that the people should stand up and refuse to do business with said bakery and force them to close due to lack of business.

I think that the government should be forced to treat all of it's citizens equally, no discrimination. If it is a government service then the government official providing it should be required to provide it to everyone because they are representative of the government as a whole which should in no way be allowed to discriminate against it's people. A private business is different than the government though.

My father runs a business so this is important to me. If a person comes in to my father's business that he doesn't want to work with for one reason or another he should have the right to say no. If his practices of saying no were discriminatory I would hope that 1) I'd give him a talking to and 2) he'd lose so much business that he'd have to close or change his policies.

But I feel I must reiterate that the bakery did not refuse to bake a cake. They refused to have a pro-gay marriage message written on a cake by them. I still don't think we'd be having this debate if they had refused to ice a message that said "Go ISIS!" I promise this is the last time I'll say that. Broken record Goken, that's me.

Akkarin wrote: People do not have the right to not be offended. Writing "Support gay marriage" does not imply that you yourself support gay marriage.

I support the judge's ruling. I'm against eating meat, but when I worked at Subway I still served people meat. Can I get a conscience clause saying I can refuse to serve meat to customers? If serving meat is such a problem, why would I put myself in a position where I had to serve meat? If there was something about my job which I couldn't stand, I should learn to tolerate it or find a different job.

I work at a telecom, and customers often come in to activate new phone lines for their mistresses. I don't support infidelity, but what this person does is none of my business. A sale a sale, what he does with it is his problem.

EDIT: the guy suing over not getting service, however, is a douche.

Goken wrote:

ren wrote: My local bakery refused to sell me a blowjob even though I specifically requested one. I am furious they are discriminating against my sexuality and am looking forward to suing them.

I think you might be confused about what services a bakery provides...or I just go to really boring bakeries. :laugh:

Senan there's one line from your last post that caught my attention.

Senan wrote: It isn't slavery when the laborer benefits financially and is doing it by choice.

In this case they aren't doing it by choice though, they are being legally mandated to do it.

I can't stress this part enough so I'm going to bold it. I think that the bakery should have done it willingly because it would be morally right to do so and be a better business practice. The part that I disagree with is the idea of being forced to do it by the government. Instead, I think that the people should stand up and refuse to do business with said bakery and force them to close due to lack of business.

I think that the government should be forced to treat all of it's citizens equally, no discrimination. If it is a government service then the government official providing it should be required to provide it to everyone because they are representative of the government as a whole which should in no way be allowed to discriminate against it's people. A private business is different than the government though.

My father runs a business so this is important to me. If a person comes in to my father's business that he doesn't want to work with for one reason or another he should have the right to say no. If his practices of saying no were discriminatory I would hope that 1) I'd give him a talking to and 2) he'd lose so much business that he'd have to close or change his policies.

But I feel I must reiterate that the bakery did not refuse to bake a cake. They refused to have a pro-gay marriage message written on a cake by them. I still don't think we'd be having this debate if they had refused to ice a message that said "Go ISIS!" I promise this is the last time I'll say that. Broken record Goken, that's me.

lol
your "broken record"ing WAY more restrained than mine

saying "support the ku klux klan" is NOT discriminatory

but if a klan person goes to a black baker and wants a cake that has a cross and a picture of a someoen wearing a sheet over their face, and the baker said "no"
who would not side with the baker then?

Goken wrote: Senan there's one line from your last post that caught my attention.

Senan wrote: It isn't slavery when the laborer benefits financially and is doing it by choice.

In this case they aren't doing it by choice though, they are being legally mandated to do it.

I wanna get in on this broken record thing! :laugh:

I'm just going to highlight one word. Choice. Everyone person involved in this case is making choices and they are experiencing the consequences of those choices.

The baker chose to be a baker and open a business. The baker chose not to write a message on a cake for moral reasons. The customer decided to buy the cake at that bakery rather than somewhere else and didn't get the message he wanted. He chose to sue the bakery. The judge chose the customer's side and another judge chose to agree with him.

The government has some rules about doing business, and they are constantly making up new ones as they go along. Some of them are downright stupid, bu dealing with this is part of being in business. I have to comply with hundreds of laws everyday that hinder my ability to do business and make money. I don't agree with most of them, but I follow them. That's the choice I make by being in the business that I am.

The point is, everyone here is making choices that could've been made differently. The baker could've been a firefighter instead, or just iced the cake and gone on with his day. He could've said he was out of frosting. He could've chased the customer out of the store while swinging a bat at his head. The customer could've gone somewhere else, iced the cake himself, or just decided not to be an a-hole about it. The judge could've recognized the stupidity of fighting over a message on a cake, but he didn't.

I'm glad we're discussing this, and I hope it raises some interesting conversations in Northern Ireland too, but let's not act like anyone has been forced to do anything that isn't a result of their own choices. Any one of these people could've avoided the situation they are in now. Maybe the consequences aren't fair and that will need to be addressed the next time a situation like this occurs, but maybe the next time the people involved will make different choices.

Let me ask you this Senan. If the situation in Ob1's post were the case instead of "Support Gay Marriage" would you still say that the bakery should have to ice the cake? Should a baker, regardless of color, be forced to ice a cake in support of the KKK because they are a baker and that's what they do?

and not just icing lol

remember, the couple wanted burt and ernie and the words "support gay marriage"

if the couple knew that the bakers were traditional christians then it would be very much like a klan klukker going to a black bakery and ordering a cake with a cross and a guy wearing the sheet, and the words. "support the kukluxklan"

Goken wrote: Let me ask you this Senan. If the situation in Ob1's post were the case instead of "Support Gay Marriage" would you still say that the bakery should have to ice the cake? Should a baker, regardless of color, be forced to ice a cake in support of the KKK because they are a baker and that's what they do?

Nobody should be forced to do anything, but in the business of cake decorating, sometimes people ask for awful decorations on their cakes. Sadly, two parties decided to turn it into a shit storm that ended up in the hands of judges who made what I believe is an ill advised decision based on the precedent it sets, not necessarily the issue of discrimination. There are two issues at play here, so I need to clarify.

1. Should a private business be forced by the government to provide a service or face legal action?

2. Should a private business refuse service to someone if they have a moral objection to said person's beliefs?

To answer the first question, NO! I don't agree with the sweeping action of the court in this case because it sets a dangerous precedent and I generally believe government should stay out of private business and let market forces weed out businesses who piss off customers.

As for the second question, I think businesses that inject their private morality into the way they do business are elitist and generally exclusionary. Just as government should stay out of business, so should religion (unless religion IS your business). To judge a paying customer because they don't worship your god or define marriage the way you do is not only pretentious, but also bad business. I find it sad that people feel the need to defend a business owner who will use the business to push a religious agenda (gay marriage is wrong) onto his customers by refusing service, but then gets mad when the customer does the same thing to him by taking him to court.

So, yes, the baker should ice the KKK cake. He should be a complete jerk to the customer the whole time and make sure the cake isn't ready on time. It should have the wrong filling in it and one of the K's should be backward. He should give the customer every reason never to come back, and when that customer complains, he should proudly announce to the world that the KKK hates his bakery. That is how he can make it known that he doesn't support KKK beliefs while still providing the service your business offers to everyone.

Icing a cake is not supporting the message of the cake either implicitly or explicitly. The baker's name isn't on the cake. To believe their support of the message is implied just by doing the icing is saying the bakery would actually have to believe Sally deserves a happy birthday in order to write that on a cake. What if Sally constantly denounces Jesus and worships Satan? Should the baker refuse to write "Happy Birthday" on the cake? Where does the judgment end, and what does it have to do with the business of selling cakes anyway?

By the way, I'm enjoying the back and forth of this conversation and the responses have been making me think a lot, so thank you all for that!

And THAT is why I asked that question. So far it felt as though you and I were on different sides of this but I now realize that we in fact agree on both of the points.

The government shouldn't force businesses to do something that they don't want to do, but businesses shouldn't discriminate like that for moral reasons and just business reasons (i.e. why turn away a paying customer?)

I like the bit about messing up the KKK cake so badly that they denounce your bakery and then you can brag about how the KKK hates you. Again, a brilliant marketing spin that I never would have thought of.

Thank you for continuing to respond in this thread. Same to everyone else who has participated too. :woohoo: